Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

Greece yesterday (10 December) asked the Eurogroup to extend its bailout by two additional months to the end of February 2015, after failing to persuade eurozone finance ministers that it had complied with the final terms of the programme.

Negotiators from Greece and its creditors have been unable to resolve differences over the government’s draft 2015 budget. Creditors argue that it overestimates government revenues by several billion euros.

Extending the bailout is a blow for Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, who wished to harvest the political gains for exiting the programme. In exchange for two bailouts, worth together some €248 billion, the Greek government has had to introduce deep budget cuts and wide-reaching structural reforms.

Pending approval
The Eurogroup is expected to approve the request once certain governments, including Germany’s, have received the approval of national parliaments.

On Monday (8 December), after the Eurogoup invited the Greek government to request an extension, Samaras announced that he was bringing forward presidential elections (see page 8), which could trigger snap elections. Samaras’s party is currently trailing in the polls to Syriza, a radical left party which is opposed to the bailout.

This led to a sudden rise in concerns among investors over the ability of Greece’s leaders to lead the country’s battered economy out of the bailout and pursue structural reforms.

Stock markets across Europe slumped on Tuesday (9 December), in particular in the United Kingdom, Germany and France which experienced falls of around 2%.

Nonetheless this paled in comparison to Greece, where shares fell by almost 13% in the largest drop since 1987.

“Markets are always very sensitive to political uncertainty,” said Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economic and financial affairs, on Tuesday evening. He said he had confidence in Samaras and that “markets should feel a bit more secure”.

Finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday (8 December) and Tuesday were scheduled to discuss whether to offer Greece a precautionary credit line once it exited the bailout at the end of December. Those discussions have been postponed.